This invention relates generally to D-C voltage converters, and more particularly, to a D-C voltage converter circuit which supplies electrical energy to a capacitive load, and which uses a capacitor in combination with at least one secondary winding of a pulse transformer to provide a pulse current.
Known single-ended D-C voltage converter circuits of the type which supply controlled currents and voltages to capacitive loads have utilized thyristors in the primary circuit of a pulse transformer, which thyristors are quenched by complex circuitry. Such circuitry may include additional thyristors which are used in conjunction with quenching capacitors and reversal chokes to achieve blocking of the conductive thyristors. Additionally, such circuits have dissipated the demagnetization energy of the pulse transformer in a resistor, or used it to charge a battery. The known circuits for achieving thyristor quenching in such converter circuits have reduced overall converter efficiency by diverting up to three percent of the power which would be transmitted to the capacitive load, for thyristor quenching purposes.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to improve the efficiency of capacitively loaded D-C converter circuits, and thereby achieve reliable quenching of thyristors in the primary circuits using low quenching energy.
It is a further object of this invention to eliminate separate quenching and reversal thyristors which have been used in combination with quenching capacitors and reversal chokes to quench the thyristors at the primary windings of the pulse transformer.